


re:do

by bittertofu



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8026282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittertofu/pseuds/bittertofu
Summary: Sort of a reincarnation AU, many, many decades after L&L. Ephinea is not really the same. Much that should not have been forgotten has faded from memory.





	1. re:visit (prologue)

Richard had always liked the sea. The sea was mystery, endless in all directions, reaching for ever distant shores; reaching downwards, too, deep into itself; deep, deep down to an unknowable far away. The sea was adventure, calling out with each sigh of wave glancing shore, beckoning the bold-hearted to ever-afters and never-mores, washing dreams and promises and memories onto white, black, and golden sands. Most of all, the sea was freedom. The sea had three rules only—the rules of wind, and wave, and sky. Only the expanse of heaven above. Only the dark of water below.

Yes, Richard loved the sea. It moved through his blood, singing its slow and ancient rhythm to his very heart.

That was why, when he met that boy with eyes the deepest blue of the ocean, he knew he must be imagining things.

"I'm Asbel," the specter chirped, thrusting forth a small, squarish hand.

Richard stared at the lines criss-crossing the rough palm, studied the squat fingers, took in the careless character of the blatantly chipped and dirty nails. His eyes wandered up the still suspended arm to the newly frayed sleeve, then further up to the knobby shoulder, and finally to the slightly tanned, impish, babyround face framed by deep auburn wisps. And nestled in that face, bright sapphires reflecting a carefree world; those eyes, those ocean depths.

He said nothing. The boy who called himself Asbel frowned.

"Crap, don't tell me I've still got mud on my face. I thought I'd gotten it all!"

The ocean-eyes vanished behind a flurry of sleeves. Suddenly aware that the thing in front of him was no illusion, Richard all but leapt backwards.

"Woah, hey!" The stranger held his palms up and open before him. A gesture of passivity. A display of harmlessness. Richard knew the motion well, and he knew it bitterly. "You okay there, uh...kid?"

Richard stared at him, wary, uncomprehending. The boy looked younger than him. He had a lot of nerve to address Richard as "kid". He did not seem particularly threatening. Even still, he could not help his nails digging sharp crescents into the palm of his clenched fists. Even still, he had one foot poised to run.

 _Never let your guard down_ , his father's voice echoed in his head. _You never know who is coming after you, or how. The only thing you can be sure of is why_.

It was frustrating, being the son of an ambassador. Richard felt always smothered. He could never get to know the places he traveled to with his father the way he wanted to know them. Always, he longed for their secrets. Always, they were denied him.

Today, though...today had been special. Today, after much careful planning, Richard had run away. It was an isolated place he'd selected for his day trip-he'd made sure of that while poring over old maps he'd found during his chaperoned outing to the library. An unnamed lake in an unmarked wood, roughly an hour's walk away from the town proper. No one was meant to be here. So why? Why did this loud, ruffian-looking boy have to show up and ruin it all? And worse, to call himself by that particular name...

"Who are you?" Richard growled, leaning back even further. He refused to be taken by surprise a second time.

"Huh? I already told you, I'm Asbel."

"You're not Asbel. I don't know where you heard that name, but it's not funny. Now tell me who you are, or...or I'll scream!"

"What the heck? Why would you do that?"

Richard sucked in a lungful of air. Screaming would be pointless, he knew. Normally it would bring his father, his nanny, his tutor, half the household staff and a small contingent of armed guards running to his location. There was no one around here to hear him, though. Yet the other boy did not seem to consider this fact at all. Beneath those auburn bangs, he was as pale as ash.

"W-wait a minute-"

The strange boy reached out, alarm and irritation flashing in his eyes. _Eyes like the sea_ , thought Richard again, and his voice died in his throat. He stepped deftly to one side. A flash of fingertips brushed the air in front of him where his arm had been moments ago. He slapped the imposter's hand away.

"Stay away from me," he demanded, turning on his heel even before the first few syllables tumbled out of his mouth. Eyes squeezed shut to block out that depthless gaze, Richard ran. Even as the waves called out to him, he ran. He ran until the currents were a distant echo, and then a whisper, and then a memory.

He ran, and he ran, and he ran.

 


	2. re:member (skip childhood?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: Run by Daughter

All day, people came and went. Where they came from, where they went to, Asbel neither knew nor cared. He wished they would stop. He didn’t mind activity, but it wasn’t any fun when the hustle and bustle consisted mostly of adults tsk-tsking him and shooing him out of the way.

“Watch out, kid!”

“Whose child is this?”

“Ah, that would be the birthday boy.”

“You’re not needed here yet. Out of the way before you’re trampled!”

“Young master Asbel!”

That last voice belonged to Frederic, Lhant manor’s head butler. Asbel heaved a sigh of relief as he scurried his way under a massive cake to where Frederic stood at the other end of the hall. The two poor clowns carrying the confectionery masterpiece shrieked in alarm at the small red-and-turquoise blur darting past them. That, at least, made Asbel smirk.

“What is all this, Frederic?” Asbel asked, waving his arms to indicate the general hullaballoo about the manor.

“Preparations for your birthday feast, young master,” Frederic replied. “It’s not every day the mayor’s son turns thirteen years old.”

“I don’t want a birthday feast. I don’t even know these people. They don’t even want me around.”

“That’s not true, young master. They are simply very busy at the moment. Once the festivities begin, you’ll be the center of attention. You’ll see”

Asbel’s face twisted into a frown. He didn’t want to be the center of attention. Rather than spending his thirteenth birthday cooped up in the manor, surrounded by stuffy adults, he’d much prefer to be out and about with Hubert and Cheria, playing knights and dragons at the old abandoned cabin out on West Lhant High Road. There was no point telling that to Frederic, though. It wasn’t Frederic who made the demands.

“Now, Master Asbel, I suggest you start getting ready. Your guests will be arriving any minute now.”

“Guests? You mean… _more_ people?”

“Yes, _more_ people,” came a voice even more familiar than Frederic’s.

“Ah,” said Frederic, bowing slightly, “Good Afternoon, Lady Kerri. Young Master Hubert. How splendid you both look.”

Asbel winced and turned, slowly. He’d been avoiding his mother since yesterday morning, when she suddenly demanded that he clean his side of the room.

“ _It’s an absolute sty_ ,” she’d scolded, pushing him up the stairs with a dust pan and broom in his hands. _“You clean it up right now, Asbel Lhant, or I’m withholding your allowance!”_

Needless to say he’d waited for her to get distracted before he ran out of the manor and spent the day running around town, playing harmless pranks and visiting his favorite stores.

Seeing this ruckus of people now, though, it was no wonder she wanted him to clean his room. It certainly wouldn’t look very good if the first-born son of Mayor Aston Lhant was seen to live in a bedroom that looked like the plague had been through it. Still, Asbel never was one to care for appearances. And anyway, it was _his_ birthday. He shouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to.

He was fully prepared to speak his mind to his mother when the sight of a blue-tuffed poodle made the words dry up on his tongue.

No, not a poodle. _Hubert_.

All the air left Asbel’s body in a rush of unseemly laughter.

“H…H…Huber…Hu…What the hell…are you _wearing_?”

The sharp-eyed little boy looked bad enough in the green-and-yellow atrocity of a diamond-patterned vest and matching shorts, but to top it all off, fluffy white collar frills adorned his neck, practically burying his chin and jaw. Hubert turned red, then white, then purple. Finally, he turned his face away, his eyes narrowed and gleaming.

“Please tell me you’re not making me wear that too,” Asbel asked, once he’d caught his breath.

“Of course not. Your father ordered a special suit for you last week. And how dare you laugh at Hubert. He looks absolutely adorable. Doesn’t he, Frederic?”

Their mother reached down and lovingly pinched Hubert’s cheek. He turned red all over again. Asbel thought he saw tears.

“Simply charming, Lady Kerri,” Frederic conceded. “Like a little prince.”

“Are you kidding? He looks like a—”

Asbel stopped. Now he definitely saw tears.

“A…a king! Yeah, Hubert, you totally look like some king from a fairy tale or something. You look really cool!”

“Stop lying, Asbel,” Hubert sniffled. “You’re not any good at it.”

“No, I’m serious! You look awesome, Hubert!”

Words were no use. Hubert turned on his heel and darted down the hall, nearly knocking over one of the several maids carrying streamers before disappearing around the corner.

“Aw, crap.”

“Watch your language, young man. You go apologize to Hubert right this instant. And you can clean up your room while you’re at it. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you ran out yesterday. And Asbel?”

Asbel paused, having just been about to take off down the hall after Hubert. His mother took a step towards him, placed a loving hand atop his head, and kissed him warmly on the cheek.

“Happy birthday, son.”

“Aw, mom,” he protested, swiping at the place where her lips had been. “You’re embarrassing me!”

He didn’t wait around to see if anyone had witnessed him being treated like a child. Following in Hubert’s footsteps, Asbel sped down the long corridor, bumping into a maid on his way. Streamers flew out of her arms, obscuring the little boy’s flight around the corner.

“Sorry!” he shouted over his shoulder, even as his mother yelled after him.

“Asbel Lhant! No running in the house!”

 

* * *

 

Hubert was exactly where Asbel expected him to be – holed up in their bedroom, his nose pressed into a book. When Asbel approached him, the smaller boy made a very blatant point of ignoring him altogether by drawing up his knees and hunching his shoulders, making himself as small as possible. It was almost as though Hubert was attempting to disappear behind the book’s thick cover.

“Listen, Hubert, I didn’t mean to—”

“Go away, Asbel. I don’t feel like talking right now.”

“Aw, c’mon little brother. Don’t be like that.”

“I mean it, Asbel. Leave me alone.”

Hubert pressed his small face even closer to the pages before him. There was no way he could possibly be reading like that.

“You’re that mad at me, huh?”

No answer.

Asbel sighed and leaned against Hubert’s desk.

“Careful!” cried Hubert. “You’ll make a mess!”

In fact, Asbel had already managed to brush off a few sheaves of paper with his sleeve. Hubert set his book aside at last and scrambled to gather them up.

“What are you always reading about, anyway?” Asbel asked. “You’ve had that book for ages. Aren’t you done with it yet?”

“A good story isn’t something you just put away after you’ve read over it once or twice. I happen to really like this book.”

“Yeah? How many times have you read it?”

“Maybe…fifteen times?”

“Fifteen? Holy crap!”

“Just because _you_ can only focus on one paragraph a day—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Asbel held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture of surrender. “So, what is it about?”

After neatly and lovingly rearranging the fallen sheets of paper on his desk, Hubert returned his attention to the book in question. The cover was white with red stitching, boasting a golden border that framed a beautifully embossed cursive “L” at the very center. At first glance, the book looked totally brand new. Upon closer inspection, however, Asbel noted the blunted edges at the bottom of the spine, and the traces of wear on the spine itself where hands like Hubert’s undoubtedly ran over it time and time again.

“It’s a book of myths,” said Hubert. He paused a moment before adding, “I think.”

“You _think_? You’ve read it fifteen times, and you _think_?”

“It’s kind of hard to tell.”

“Is that what all these notes are?”

Asbel reached for the newly rearranged sheets of paper on the edge of Hubert’s desk.

“No,” Hubert squeaked, “don’t touch those! They’re in order!”

Asbel retracted his hand like a snake was after it.

“Yeesh, sorry.”

Giving a pointedly irritated huff, Hubert pushed the beautiful book into Asbel’s arms.

“If you’re so curious, read it yourself. You might learn something.”

“Learn? From a book of myths? What could I learn from a bunch of made-up stories?”

“You could learn about your namesake, for one thing.”

“My…name…sake?”

“Namesake. You know. The person you were named after.”

“Uh…”

Hubert’s frustration was almost palpable.

“Oh, Asbel. Don’t tell me you don’t even know where your name comes from? Father loves the stories in this book. He named us both after heroes.”

“If you say so…”

“Just read it!”

“Okay, okay.”

He flipped open to the first page. The ink, like the stitching, was deep red. It made Asbel think of the word _crimson_ , which in turn made him think of a roaring fire. He already felt uncomfortable.

The very first words he glimpsed, he read aloud.

“‘May the flowers of Lhant bloom forever more.’ What the heck does that mean? Since when has Lhant ever had any flowers?”

Hubert shook his head, the picture of disappointment.

“Flowers used to grow all over the town, Asbel. There was even a special place, Lhant Hill, where flowers grew all-year round. Don’t you pay attention during our lessons? Wait. Don’t answer that.”

Asbel gave an embarrassed chuckle. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually paid attention one-hundred percent to any lecture. Perhaps when the soldiers had come visiting from Barona. Yes, he’d paid attention then. He sat in rapture at the dinner table while his father’s guests told tales of their confrontations with the pirates, and of the expeditions into Orlan Woods where strange creatures and stranger people were said to roam. He marveled at the stories they told of their great king, and he marveled at the loyalty they so obviously felt towards him. Asbel felt special pride in belonging to a country where the soldiers of their army were still formally called Knights.

The Knights of Windor. How he longed to study underneath them, to one day join their ranks.

As Asbel was daydreaming, he caught a glimpse of the topmost sheaf of paper on the stack of papers he’d knocked over not too long ago. The reason it caught his eye was that it was very obviously a map. A beautifully drawn map at that. He set the book of myths aside.

“Wow, Hubert! Did you draw this?”

Asbel leaned over it, studying it closely, yet being very careful not to touch it. Hubert flushed pink.

“Y…yes. I drew it based on some descriptions in the book and on some of the more recent maps of Lhant that I could find in our library.”

“What’s this big bush here?”

“That’s where Lhant Hill should be. Apparently there used to be a giant _tree_ growing there, and flowers all around. From what I can tell, though, it’s all forest now.”

“Geez, Hubert, you sure are smart.”

“I-it was nothing, really. I found it interesting enough to research, is all. I don’t do this sort of thing normally, you know.”

“Yeah you do. You’re a total bookworm. But that’s okay! That’s what makes you so awesome!”

“Gee, thanks, Asbel.”

There was no missing the note of sarcasm in his little brother’s voice, but Asbel only laughed and gave him a few friendly smacks on the back.

“Glad you’re talking to me again, Hubert,” he said.

For the third time in less than half an hour, Hubert turned bright pink. While Asbel generally found it amusing how easy it was to fluster him, he was a little concerned about it, too. Sometime soon, he’d have to teach Hubert how to be more assertive. He just couldn’t stand the thought of anyone bullying his squeamish little brother.

“You’d better get ready for the party, Asbel,” Hubert mumbled. “Mom’ll get upset again.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Turning to his side of the room, Asbel was quick to spot the new suit spread out neatly on his bed. He stuck out his tongue at the powder-blue color, and made a disgusted noise upon spotting the bowtie. A pink carnation stuck proudly out from the left breast-pocket.

“Seriously? I’m supposed to wear _that_? I’ll look so stupid!”

“At least you don’t have to wear collar frills.”

“This is so lame. What do you say we ditch?”

Hubert looked genuinely aghast. “It’s _your_ party, Asbel! You can’t skip your own party! Besides, didn’t you hear dad this morning? There’s an important guest comi—”

“Aw, who cares about some stupid VIP. Dad’s Mayor of Lhant. Everyone who visits is an important guest. I’m sick of important guests. I’m not going to this dumb party.”

“But Asbel—”

“You’re welcome to come with me, Hubert. Just don’t try to stop me.”

He flashed his little brother his widest grin, not knowing how reckless an image he struck just then. He certainly _felt_ reckless. Mom and Dad were going to be so mad when they found out he was missing, but other than a mild fluttering in his stomach, Asbel couldn’t care less. It was his birthday, and he was going to enjoy it.

“Wh-where will you go?” Hubert stammered.

“Where else?” said Asbel. “I’m going to Lhant Hill.”

“I don’t know, Asbel. This sounds like a bad idea…”

“It’ll be fine. This place is so crowded, it’ll be hours before anyone notices we’re gone.”

“It won’t be hours, it’ll be minutes. You’re the birthday boy. They’ll be looking for you! And even assuming it _is_ hours before they realize we’re not here, what are we gonna do if we get lost, or, or if we get hurt! What if no one comes for us fast enough and—”

“Geez, Hubert, you worry way too much. Just relax, would you? Look, we’ll be fine. If you’re that upset about it, I promise we’ll be back before it gets dark. I just wanna’ check it out, that’s all. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

“Well…maybe a little…”

“That settles it then! We’re going to Lhant Hill! But…you might wanna get rid of that foofy necklace first.”

“It’s not a necklace. They’re collar frills.”

“Whatever.”

 

* * *

 

No one glanced twice at the two small boys as they slipped out the manor’s front door. After all, what were two more bodies in all that mayhem? Filled with the euphoria of his victory, Asbel led the way out of Lhant proper and out onto the weed-wild North Lhant Road. The sun was still high, heavy and hot as it bore down on them even through the shade of overgrown trees.

It had been ages since the North Lhant Road was used. No one bothered tending to it anymore, since traffic between Windor and Fendel had ceased ages ago; the reason for this was long beyond memory. The “road” itself was barely discernible beneath their feet, strewn as the cracked earth was with pebbles, grass, and thick shrubs locked together by snaking vines.

Asbel navigated the chaos well enough, pausing every so often to make sure Hubert was still behind him. He noted with pride that his little brother seemed to have no trouble keeping up. They kept a steady pace, stopping at last before a tangle of bushes and roots. Hubert frowned, stared at his map, looked up, frowned again.

“There should be another path here,” he mumbled, squinting into the shadows.

He looked unsettled, and Asbel didn’t blame him; he felt unsettled, too. Something seemed very strange from the moment they left Lhant’s protective walls. Whatever it was, though, Asbel couldn’t place it. He cast his gaze around for something, anything at all, that might suggest some sort of walkway. There was nothing.

“Are you sure it’s here, Hubert? Maybe we walked too far. Or not far enough.”

“No, this is the place. I drew the map to scale and everything. The path should be right in front of us.”

“I get it. Wait here.”

“Wait, Asbel, what are you—”

“Stay here, Hubert.”

Asbel spun away from the small hand reaching out to stop him and plunged headlong into the wall of bushes where a wall of bushes should not have been. Immediately he felt a sharp tug on his sleeve. With a grunt of effort, he yanked his arm forward as hard as he could. There was a loud _riiip_ , and suddenly the sleeve caught in the branch that had been holding him up tore magnificently. Asbel found himself rolling head over elbow over bottom through leaves, broken branches, and mud. His momentum was only stopped by the rotting stump of a long dead tree.

“Asbel,” a tiny voice called out. “Asbel, are you alright?”

“Y-yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

So he said, but his head was throbbing. He ran his fingers lightly over the tender ache at the back of his skull. A pretty solid lump there, but no blood. That was good. His sleeve, though…his sleeve was a disaster. Looking at it, he could only wince. It hung from his arm like a tattered flag. Mom definitely would not be happy about that.

Ah, well. There was no use worrying about it right now. It was done and over with. Asbel stood slowly and patted himself down. Nothing broken, so far as he could tell. His clothes and face were muddy. Twigs and pebbles decorated his hair. Other than that, he was golden. He had suffered worse in his short lifetime. Satisfied he would survive, Asbel took the opportunity to regain his bearings. To one side, the wall of bushes he battled through looked even thicker and more threatening than before. To the other side, a tiny depression in what once might have been a high rock wall or the side of a steep, stone cliff trickled with water. Beyond that, he glimpsed a faded path winding up the side of a shallow hill.

“Asbel,” the small voice called out again, “I think we should go back. I don’t like this place. Something isn’t right.”

“I found the path, Hubert. I’m just gonna check it out real quick.”

“Don’t! You don’t know what’s up there, it might be dangerous. Seriously, let’s just go. It’s getting dark, Asbel. You promised.”

“Just five minutes!”

With that, he bolted up the path. Behind him Hubert was still shouting, but the already small voice only got farther and farther away. Asbel was struck by a pang of guilt, but only a little. This whole thing made him feel like a real knight on a real adventure. He felt like he could do anything, be anything, because he had already gone exploring all on his own. And besides, Asbel told himself, he could make it up to Hubert later by bringing him up here once he was sure it was safe.

His heart alight, Asbel at last crested the top of the hill.

He had a strange sensation, then. It was more than his breath hitching in his throat (which it did), and more, also, than his stomach clenching into a tight knot (which it also did). It was as if the ground beneath him had turned into waves. His knees suddenly did not feel strong enough to support him. His heart, which had already been racing, raced faster, and for a different reason. What that reason was, Asbel could not have said. Maybe it was the sight of the small lake glittering at the foot of the black tree husk, or the lilies (lilies!) wrapping its banks like a pearl necklace. (Flowers in Lhant. Unbelievable!). Maybe it was the unobstructed view of sky beyond the old dead tree, or the majesty of the ocean stretched out below like the sky’s own reflection. Asbel wanted to believe it was these things that made his skin go cold and his mind stop, and not the person he saw sitting at the lake’s edge, a boy with hair the color of early summer.

Sick dread replaced wonder in an instant. The boy by the lakeside was swaying. He had fallen asleep. He was leaning too far, too close to the water. Forcing his legs to work, Asbel ran faster than he ever had in his life. He caught the boy just as he began to fall.

“Look out!” Asbel shouted, pulling the stranger away from the water’s edge.

Despite the commotion, the mysterious boy was slow to wake. Very, very slow. He blinked slowly, lifted his head slowly, stared at Asbel for a long, long time. It seemed like ages before his eyes finally lit up with what could even remotely be called awareness. They were lovely, those eyes, thought Asbel; like storm clouds, if storm clouds were captured in jewels.

“I’m Asbel,” he said, sticking out his hand. He wasn’t sure what compelled him to introduce himself so suddenly, but he felt it was right. He felt that if he didn’t establish some sort of connection with this person right now, he would never get the chance again. Considering they had only just met, that thought should not have terrified him as much as it did. Somehow, though, the boy before him did not seem real. Something about him suggested an illusion, or a dream that one wakes up from too suddenly and too soon. Asbel wasn’t sure what worried him more—that the boy might be nothing more than a vision, or that, if he was only dreaming, he was scared to wake up.

Only when the other boy leapt abruptly backwards and away did Asbel realize how close their faces had been. _Duh, Asbel_ , he chided himself. Of course anyone would be freaked out by that. He felt his cheeks go hot, but he did his best to play it off.

“Woah, hey! You okay there, uh…kid?”

“Who are you?”

The hostility in his voice made Asbel go cold.

 _No_ , he thought, scrambling desperately to understand. _This is wrong. It shouldn’t be like this_. _But…what_ should _it be like_?

“H-huh?” _I don’t understand._ “I already told you, I’m Asbel.” _You know me. You know me better than anyone…don’t you?_

His head hurt again. The throbbing in his skull was more annoying than painful, but it made him nervous all the same. For some reason, he couldn’t get his thoughts together. Looking at that face, he swore it was familiar. Yet every time he came close to piecing together what might have been a memory, coherency slid away from him like sand seeping from a broken hourglass.

“You’re not Asbel,” the boy accused acidly. “I don’t know where you heard that name, but it’s not funny. Now tell me who you are, or…or I’ll scream!”

_No._

“What the heck?”

_Wait._

“Why would you do that?”

 _Please, look at me. It’s me. It’s_ me!

The boy breathed in deep. Asbel’s chest felt tight. It shouldn’t have bothered him this much to be hated by a stranger. He told himself that, but he was still angry, and he was hurt, and he was afraid. How was it that after everything, the groundings, the scoldings, the months and months his father spent so far from home, after all that, how was it that cold and blatant rejection by someone he didn’t even know—no, he absolutely did not know him, he _could not_ know him—left him feeling so alone?

His knees shook, making it difficult to stand. Trembling, he reached out for the other boy. The boy retreated. Adding insult to injury, he slapped Asbel’s hand away like it was nothing more than some disgusting fly.

“Stay away from me,” the boy hissed.

Asbel still had his hand suspended in the air by the time the stranger had vanished from sight. Sickness rocked him. The world blurred, and he was alarmed to find water dribbling down his cheeks. He wasn’t sad, only wildly confused and frustrated. So why the tears?

 _This is wrong_ , he thought again for what seemed like the hundredth time. _This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong—_

It occurred to him suddenly what had been bothering him for so long. In the stillness, Asbel closed his eyes and listened. This place, like the whole of North Lhant Road, was totally silent. There was no wind. There was no birdsong. There were no critters of any kind rustling amongst the copious plant life. The reality of the absolute deadness of the place pooled like ice in the pit of his stomach.

At some point during his reflection, Hubert appeared beside him. He called out to him tentatively, as if unsure that it was really his older brother he was talking to.

“…Asbel? Is everything okay?”

At first, Asbel nodded. Soon after, he shook his head. Without another word, Hubert sat down beside him. They kept their silence long enough for the last hint of the sun to sink quietly into the sea.

“What’s going on, Hubert?” Asbel finally asked.

“What…what do you mean?”

How to explain that it felt like the world was different, had never, in fact, been what they thought it was; that something had only just begun, yet actually had been in motion since before time began? How to explain that with just one chance meeting (a meeting that wasn’t really a meeting at all), Asbel felt like his whole life had changed? He could only shake his head a second time.

“Nothing. Forget it. Happy Birthday to me.”

Hubert gave him a concerned look. Asbel only smiled. He looked up, and he saw stars.

 


	3. re:live (skip childhood? - pt. II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: "Of the Night" by Bastille

A hand, swift, stinging, rough across his cheek. The sound that follows, echoing through the open spaces and among the high rafters. No words, only a stone glare and cold, cold silence. Only the communication of disappointment in his father’s eyes. Nothing needs saying. With that slap, and with that look, Richard understands.

_You know better_ , his father’s unvoiced chastisement resounds. _That was a stupid thing to do_.

Richard does not dare ask to be forgiven, lest that hand come at him again. The right side of his face still prickles.

Rule Number One:

A prince does not disobey his father.

Rule Number Two:

A prince never begs forgiveness, even if he must apologize. He makes reparations, for actions speak louder than words.

In any case, Richard has his own reasons for biting his tongue. He is _not_ sorry, and lying to Father is worse than anything else he could have done. He would run away again if it meant being weaved into the stillness of that beautiful place, dozing by the lake among the lilies in the shadow of the black tree. It’d felt _right_ there, like he’d belonged. Never in his whole life had he felt that way, not about any place, nor about anyone. If only that boy had not come…

No, he would not think of that now.

Father stalks off, leaving the familiar view of his broad, retreating back further etched into Richard’s memory. As an ambassador, as a father, as the son of ancient kings, it does not matter—that man is ever the picture of dignity.

A small, gloved hand touches Richard’s shoulder. He turns, and his nanny smiles at him, her gentle, lavender eyes touched by sympathy. He cannot find it in him to smile back.

Sophie wraps him in her slender arms. She is small and soft and smells so sweetly, yet she is also warm and the hold she has on him is strong for all that it is gentle. Richard wonders if his mother, had she survived him, would have held him the same. He wonders, had she survived him, if his father would too.

Biting hard on his lower lip, Richard lifts his arms—they move slowly, feel heavy despite being so thin—and returns his nanny’s embrace. At least while he is with her like this, he can hide his face.

Rule Number Three:

A prince must never, no matter what, be seen to cry.

 

* * *

 

They arrive at Lhant Manor as if in a parade—two Knights in front, followed by Richard and his father, side-by-side; only steps behind them, Sophie, the nanny, and Bryce, the tutor; at the tail of the procession, two more Knights. By the time they get there, and are ushered in, and have mingled, the stars framing Foselos are high and bright. Richard yearns to be outside, marveling at them. There is too much activity within the manor, and it is too obvious that he is not a part of it. He and Father stand to one side, smiling politely, watching a multitude of happy bodies twirl in tides about the dance floor. He is not even sure what this party is for.

“Master Richard, would you dance with me?”

Sophie’s hand is open before him. As always, she dons her long, white gloves. If ever her palms lay bare, Richard never saw them. Timid, he looks to Father.

“Go on,” Father answers. Brisk. Gruff. He does not speak often, and when he does, such is the result.

Still, permission is permission, another thing that Father does not often give. Ecstatic to be doing _something_ , Richard takes Sophie’s hand and glides with her out among the whirling, spinning, dizzy masses. Of course, he doesn’t fail to notice the pair of Knights that follow close behind them, but at this point he could care less.

Dancing! In a crowd!

In Barona, this would be unheard of. In Barona, too many fancily garbed nobles tucked blades or poisoned needles into their sleeves. Even with Sophie around, even with Bryce, Barona was never safe.

It feels so good to be _free_ , to move his feet, stepping in time with the music and the people at last. The heat, the rush, the thrill of company and song—his head spins with it all. His cheeks feel oddly stretched. He is smiling. Now, when was the last time he did that? It doesn’t matter what this party is for; he’s glad to be here. Like this, he can almost forget who he really is.

Richard, son of Ferdinand, the King’s ambassador. Ferdinand, the true and rightful King of Windor. Richard Windor, a prince, dispossessed.

_No wonder so many want you dead. Imagine if people learned the truth…_

Cold seizes him. His knees lock.

Sophie pulls him close before he nearly collides with a hapless young couple dancing beside them. Richard, gray with sick, tries to squeak out an apology. Rule Number Two keeps his lips pressed into a thin line. It is the young couple, recognizing him as the ambassador’s son, that apologizes. He shakes his head weakly, smiles weakly. Bowing, excusing themselves, they shuffle awkwardly away.

“I’m sorry, young master,” says Sophie, guiding him to a space clear of the mess of dancers.

“Did I spin you too fast?”

Richard shakes his head, attempts a smile. His lips only twitch.

“Do you want to sit down?”

“It’s okay, Sophie. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He is not sure. His hands are shaking. He thrusts them into his pockets, swiftly, before anyone can see. The excited buzzing in his blood is something else now, a sinister ringing. He looks. He _really_ looks. There are too many people. The manor is too small, too hot, too crowded. They are all too loud, much too loud and louder still, with feet stomping, music roaring, glasses clinking, strangers murmuring and hundreds laughing, laughing, laughing. They could be laughing at anything, or anyone. They could be laughing at him.

Father is leagues away, faces and faces far. Richard must get back, he knows it. The drumming in his head knows it. Gripping Sophie’s hand, he tugs her in Father’s direction. Weights like hands grabbing at his ankles, pulling, slow him.

_It’s happening again._

His breath, dragging; his head, whirling. The world sways, side-to-side-to-side.

_Panic. I’m panicking. Must calm down._

He tells himself this, even as his heart races. He cannot move.

All at once, silence. Mild alarm amongst the crowd as the music, the dancing, stop. Still, everyone is smiling. Apparently, this is expected—yet Richard finds the silence worse than the incessant sound. There is a heaviness in the sudden hush that makes his shoulders ache. His gaze follows the turning heads to the stairway, where a young boy in sky blue descends with a pointed frown. Beside him, a dignified woman and another, smaller boy, both with hair a shocking depth of blue. In the back of his mind Richard thinks, _mother and son_. The thought comes from far away, a mere observation among the countless things he must and does observe on a day-to-day basis. He makes nothing of it.

The string instruments take up the traditional Windorian birthday song, and the gathered masses begin to sing. As if waking from a momentary dream, the world stirs again. Breath returns to Richard’s lungs in an almost painful surge. Suddenly it is not he clinging to Sophie’s hand, but Sophie clinging to his. Her fingers, small though they are, squeeze tight.

His eyes come back into focus, settling on his caretaker’s ashen face.

“…Sophie?”

“It’s him,” she whispers, and if Richard didn’t know any better he’d think the glimmer in her eyes to be tears. She turns, grips his shoulders, and kneels before him. “Richard, listen to me. That boy, he’s—”

She is interrupted by the cheering that erupts as soon as the boy in question reaches the bottom of the stairs. Richard loses sight of him behind the flurry of adults. Still, he’d looked familiar. The name “Asbel” flashes through his mind. Scowling, he pushes it away. The only Asbel he knows is a young man, a knight loyal and brave, beloved by all who meet him; beloved especially by his king. The only Asbel he knows exists solely within his dreams, and within the stories that he writes.

_I misheard him_ , Richard thinks, _that boy by the lake. I misheard him. I must have._

Even as his thoughts run thus, he overhears the damning words. He overhears, and goes cold all over again.

“Asbel!” comes the high-pitched shout.

A small girl with rose hair braided tight against her scalp flies by in a blur. He catches himself reaching out to her, the syllable “che” caught between his teeth. The “ch” is soft, a mere careless shush, and the “e” fades into a whisper. Richard’s hand retreats, burned by a memory he swears he does not have. He curls his arms around his waist to stop his shivering. Sophie pulls him close, bracing her arms tight across his chest.

“Why do I…”

_Why do I know her name?_

The words stick in his throat. Sophie’s grip on him tightens.

“You must have heard someone calling for her,” she soothes. “There are lots of people here, Richard.”

Never mind that he’d never fully given voice to his question. Never mind that Sophie forgot herself and addressed him as “Richard” instead of “young master.” Such slips happen fairly often, and Richard does not mind. In fact, he sees it as testament to how well Sophie knows him, how close they are. Of everyone in his life, the flurry of personal security, the tutors, the dignitaries, the nobles, maids, footmen— _everyone_ —Sophie has been by his side the longest. He cannot remember a time before Sophie was in his life, though he knows she only became his nanny around the end of his third summer. That moment he remembers vividly. The way she swept into his bedroom with the skirts of her white gown swirling like soft petals about her slender knees, her gloved arms held open to him; the way she plucked him up so easily, so naturally; how her skin smelt of fresh-cut flowers in an open field as she held him to her like a child long-lost and belovedly found; how could he not love her wholly, indiscriminately, after that?

Sophie knows him. She knows him better than anyone. It’d be no shock to him if she understood always the run of his thoughts, whether his voice found form for them or no. She is the only friend, the only mother that Richard has ever known. And so he let her hold him, and comfort him, even though it was the mark of a child (not a prince) to feel no shame being coddled in public.

“Why don’t we go outside?” suggests Sophie. “It’s too crowded in here, isn’t it? You could tell me a story. You haven’t told me one in a while. I want to hear more about the knight. About Asbel.”

Asbel…Sophie is the only one Richard has ever told about Asbel. She is the only one in the world who he has let glimpse the fogspace of his dreaming, and even she does not know the extent of it—of the dark place at every dream’s end, or of the dull ache it leaves in his chest each time he wakes.

Once, when he was very small, he’d cut his hand very badly during fencing practice. The fencing master had been sacked for allowing the ambassador’s young son to handle sharpened blades—there was a reason for that of course, but Richard did not like to think about it. More than anything, he remembered the pain—the sharp burn as red rivers soaked his palm and pooled around his feet. He’d stared in fascination at his life source flowing freely and away, even as so many people gathered screaming around him. Even as he stared motionless and dumb at the chaos of his wound, his hand was wrapped tightly in someone’s shirt to staunch the bleeding, and losing sight so suddenly of such a bright color had been a shock. Even after the hand was stitched, scarred, and healed, for a long time after Richard still felt a dull throbbing beneath his skin, sometimes so badly that he spent whole hours curled up in bed cradling his palm, biting back tears.

The ache he wakes with in his chest is like that, only much, much worse. It has to do with the dream about the knight, he knows it does, but he can never remember exactly how it ends. There is only the deep, deep dark. There is only the silence, and the cold, and the pain.

He cannot tell Sophie all of that. Even imagining the concern in her all too expressive eyes is more than Richard can bear.

Instead he disentangles himself from her protective embrace, turns to face her, musters a smile.

“I’m sorry, Sophie. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m alright, really. Besides, Father won’t like it if we leave without telling him.”

Thankfully she smiles back, though Richard knows she isn’t fooled by him one bit. She never is.

Hand in hand, they skirt the dance floor, which is once again a crush of bodies in motion. The knights that had been ever nearby slide in to walk on either side of them, and they make it back to Father without incident. Beside him, they find Aston Lhant, mayor of this small outskirt town and master of this quaint yet spacious manor. Richard warms under the mayor’s appraising eyes, and lets out a sigh of relief when the man nods in apparent approval.

“A well composed young man,” says Aston, smiling now. “You can tell just by looking at him that he’s bright.” He turns to Richard. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Your father and I are close friends. He speaks of you often, and with great pride. I can see now that his boasts are not _only_ boasts.”

Richard finds the copper hair and the gentle, steady gaze to be somewhat familiar, though he cannot place why. Gathering his wits about him, he draws himself up to his full height (which is not much, admittedly, but still more than most boys his age) and, with perfect grace, he gives the Mayor of Lhant his best bow.

“It is an honor to meet you, sir,” says Richard, and surprisingly, his voice does not tremble as it normally does when he speaks to imposing adults.

“And with perfect manners,” the mayor exclaims. “If only my son was half as self-disciplined as you are.”

Father’s hand descends upon him, and it takes all of Richard’s self-control not to draw back or to flinch. But Father merely places his hand atop his head, gently, and ruffles his hair in a way he hasn’t done in years and years. The soft smile hiding in the shadows at the corner of his lip is something Richard has never seen before, not once. After the debacle of only hours ago, the shock of Father’s sudden affection is near numbing. Richard’s eyes prickle and burn. His vision blurs. He swallows hard, and clenches his jaw.

“He is skilled at much, my Richard,” father muses, his hand still brushing at Richard’s hair. He pauses a moment, considering, and then adds, “Remind me to enroll you in dance lessons when we return to Barona. We can’t have you waddling about ballrooms like a baby penguin your entire life.”

Fingers of heat trail up the back of Richard’s neck and curl around his ears, reaching forward to warm his entire face. Behind him, Sophie giggles.

“Dancing lessons,” says the mayor, his gaze fixed on some unseen thing through the crowd and across the wide room. “That’s not a terrible idea. Maybe I’ll enroll my son in dancing lessons too. It might teach him some discipline.”

A chuckle. A shake of his auburn head.

Although Richard suspects Mayor Aston to be jesting, Father, smiling warmly, claps his friend amiably on the shoulder.

“You should let him come to Barona, with us. There isn’t really anyone Richard’s age back at the palace. I suspect it gets rather lonely for him. Besides, if they take lessons together, they may be more motivated to do their best. Friendly competition and all.”

“Your Ma…Forgive me, Lord _Ambassador_ …I could not possibly impose on you in such a way.”

“Nonsense, Aston. I’m inviting him. He can stay with us. Our quarters are more than sufficient to accommodate a single child.”

“Even so…”

“If it’s his studies your worried about, he can continue them with us. Bryce is the best tutor in Barona, and an excellent fencing master on top of that. Your boy is thirteen now, isn’t he? No better time to learn more about the world.”

“I don’t disagree…I would have to discuss it with my wife.”

“Of course.”

Even as Father and Mayor Aston Lhant continue making plans—glancing now at Richard, now at the mysterious Lhant son who must even now be mingling amongst the birthday wishing men and women of the entire town—Richard repeats the mayor’s words in his head, again, and yet again, and again once more.

_Your Majesty. He was going to say Your Majesty._

_He knows who we are. There is someone who knows._

Panic rises. At once Sophie’s hands are on his shoulders, a firm yet gentle grip. She smiles at him, a bright smile that ebbs his bubbling anxiety.

“It’s okay, Richard,” she whispers, kneeling so that she’s eye-level with him. “Lord Aston is a good man. I’ve known him for a long, long time. You can trust him, okay?”

Richard has no time to wonder how she knows, how she always, always knows, because suddenly she is standing again, her amethyst eyes open wide in shock, in joy, in wonder, in fear. He turns to learn what has caught her attention so fully, only to find himself staring into a beloved sea.

A sunlit sea, a shallow bay at low-tide in summer, with flecks of gold glittering in the warm, white sands. Yet even still a sea deep and unknowable, sun struck as it is. Inviting in its unknowableness, daring, no, _welcoming_ would-be explorers to wade, to sink, to drown.

Richard stumbles backwards, one step, two. Sophie catches him. Father and the mayor eye him curiously, and so does the sea.

“Holy crap! It’s you!”

“Asbel! Mind your tongue!”

The boy, Asbel, flinches, but only just. He seems more interested in Richard, and Richard wishes desperately for him to lose that interest as quickly as possible.

“ _It’s you_ ,” repeats Father, almost smiling. “You speak as if you’ve met my son before, young master Asbel.”

Richard does not find this to be worth smiling about in the least. He wants to crawl into a dark hole deep in the earth and stay there, forever. Anything. Anything to escape wanting to leap headlong into the promise of that sea. Anything to escape the hollow rhythm that that name beats against his heart.

Even as he stands, dumbstruck, wishing with all his strength, the boy called Asbel reaches out, seizes his hand, and stares him dead in the eyes. Richard squeezes his eyes shut, but that only forces him to focus on the rough fingers enslaving his palm, on the coarse, warm skin and the thrumming pulse in the narrow wrist. His eyes open once more, only to trap him in the other’s searching gaze. Pounding, his heart hitches in his throat.

Asbel’s serious expression dissolves into a small frown.

“No,” he says, his voice low. “No, I really don’t know you at all, do I? I thought…Well, doesn’t matter.”

And he lets go Richard’s hand. And he steps away.

All of this happens in the span of seconds, when to Richard it had felt like minutes. When he finally remembers to breathe, there is something lacking in the flavor of the air. A bitter taste, like ash or dirt, settles on his tongue. Somewhere in the spaces between his thoughts there lurks the specter of a memory, but he cannot grasp it. Straining for it sends a sharp pain shooting through the front of his skull. Reluctantly, he lets it go.

Leaning back, the boy called Asbel folds his arms and grins. The carnation tucked so proudly into the breast pocket collapses totally. A careless child, this one. The suit becomes him, yet somehow it’s so obvious that he is exactly uncomfortable in it. Perhaps it is the way he stands—shoulders tense, drawn up, all his weight set on one leg while the free foot tap-tap-taps a nervous rhythm almost in keeping with the music from the band. Despite his discomfort, Richard finds himself having to bite back a smile—this boy, Asbel, had looked so much more natural in that pocket of space on the cliff side, with his hair tousled and twigged and his face a muddy mess.

“So,” says Asbel, “dance buddies huh? Man, that sounds lame. But at least I’ll finally get to see the capitol! Hey, is the palace really as big as they say it is? Are there a lot of knights there? I bet you throw some pretty fancy parties, right? Nothing like this—”

The mayor shoots his son a withering look, effectively silencing him. “Your mother worked hard to put this together for you. Do not disrespect her, Asbel.”

Asbel mutters indistinctly, huffs, frowns again. He scratches the back of his head, and a faint hint of red tints his cheeks. Richard almost smiles. Almost.

“You ought to show your guests more respect, Asbel,” the mayor goes on. “You didn’t even greet them properly. These are very important friends of ours, you know.”

“Ohhhhh, so _you’re_ the V.I.P., huh? Who’d have guessed!”

Behind him, Mayor Aston Lhant shakes his head. And Father…Father does something Richard has no memory of him ever having done before—Father laughs. This strange boy, course, crude, shameless, had made Father— _his_ father, Ferdinand, the stone giant, the cold sentinel—laugh. He goes on laughing, even as the mayor apologizes for his son’s uncouth behavior.

Richard’s almost-smile sinks into the pit of his stomach.

This isn’t jealousy. It’s…wonder? disbelief? denial? No. None of those, either. None account for the fluttering in his abdomen or for the sudden lightness where moments before had only been a suffocating weight. None account for the urge in him to reach out, to take up those hands and to hold them for no other reason than they were worth being held.

Finally, he settles upon it.

_Grateful. I’m grateful to him._

“I apologize,” he says, even now forcing himself to look directly into those mystifying blues. “It seems I have been the rude one. You’re right, Father. Asbel and I have met before. But I’m afraid I didn’t properly introduce myself.”

Strange how those eyes glimmer as Richard steps forward, how the pupils (small whirlpools in the ocean depths) suddenly contract, dilate, contract again.

Uncomfortable still, terrified still, he extends his hand. Those eyes follow his hand all the way to where it stops, hovering midway between the two of them.

“My name is Richard. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Asbel.”

Asbel, who had lunged for Richard’s hand only moments before, now eyes it with uncertainty. The passing seconds become a minute, and the minute becomes too long. Richard swears that his pounding heart must be audible to half the manor. If his knees were not already pressed together, he was certain they would be knocking. As it is, he can barely keep his feet.

_He doesn’t trust me. He’s afraid of me._

_He hates me. He hates me._

_He must hate me._

Dropping his hand, dropping his gaze, his lips move, but no words come out. He takes a step back, seeking for the warmth of Sophie behind him. Before he can step again, however, Asbel catches his hand a second time.

“S-sorry!” he blurts out (and he is shaking, more than Richard is shaking, and Richard is amazed to see tears flowing freely down the odd boy’s still rosy cheeks). “I…I’m glad to meet you, really! I was just surprised, since before you… you… ah, crap.”

Still holding tight to Richard’s hand, Asbel swipes his free arm across his eyes to brush away the tears.

The mayor lays a concerned hand on his son’s shoulder. “Are you alright, Asbel?”

“Y-yeah, sorry, I… I don’t know why I’m… man, this is embarrassing.”

He smiles then, a bright, warm, open smile, full of easy Windorian summers, of thirteen years roaming over green hills and down long, lazy valleys, of days spent picking apples and climbing windmills, and of hours and more hours spent watching boats slide in and out of harbor, meanwhile gazing across a sunset sea and dreaming of far-beyonds. He smiles, even as tears continue to fall.

Richard’s chest aches. It aches with a burn and a depth beyond what his dreams have ever left him with before. Despite that, he can’t bring himself to let go of Asbel’s hand. There is safety in that hand. There is promise, and acceptance, in those eyes.

Throat tight, he realizes he is already sinking. He is sinking, and sinking fast.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. re:gret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so, so much to @Valkyraffe (flightstone on tumblr) for beta'ing this chapter. Couldn't have published it without them! You're the best!
> 
> Soundtrack: "Is There Somewhere" by Halsey

The trick was to picture yourself in the moment.

Picture the shift of gravity, however slight, when holding another person in your arms. Picture holding their right hand in your left hand, the dry palm and the warm grip; feel your right hand on their waist, toes pointing at toes, eyes focused on their eyes; or, if that was too much, focused somewhere on the middle of their forehead. It helped, too, to imagine the music and to visualize moving through the steps. That way, when the time came, you wouldn't get nervous and trip over your own feet (or even worse, your partner's feet). Assuming you achieve all this without puddling into a mess of nerves and sweat stuck to the floor, if at all possible, smile, and mean it.

More than anything, try to forget that there are people watching.

That was Captain Malik Caesar's advice for perfecting the ballroom dance. Why Asbel asked the Captain of the Royal Knights of Barona for dancing advice was a question far beyond him now. It occurred to Asbel that the Captain might be teasing him, but with only hours left until the annual spring gala, he was desperate. Half of Barona would be in attendance, not to mention the lords, ladies, and other minor nobles that had flooded into the capitol from all over Windor over the course of the past week. This, of course, included Aston Lhant, Lady Kerri, and Asbel's little brother, Hubert. It'd been a little over four years since he'd last seen any of them, packed off to the palace as he was so soon after his thirteenth birthday, and he'd be damned if the first thing he did after all that time was invite his father's criticism by dancing like a disgruntled rooster on its way to the chopping block.

Besides, there was someone else he wanted to show off to. As the special guest of the ambassador, he couldn't afford to lag behind Richard, the ambassador's son; Richard, who in the short span of time they had been taking dance lessons together had somehow mastered the art of commanding the dance floor with the grace of a swan. No more waddling baby penguin. Asbel, on the other hand, had never quite shaken the awkward shuffle out of his steps. He felt much more at ease swinging a blade.

The whole of it had his stomach in knots.

_Picture yourself in the moment. Hand on hand, hand on hip, fingers...laced? Unlaced? Eyes go where? Feet do what? Winds have mercy...._

“Planning on seducing that bush?”

Asbel jolted at the sound of the Captain's voice. The bush in question lost a number of its brittle branches when Asbel, losing his balance, toppled into it.

“I've seen Orlan Woods turn even the strongest of knights funny in the head,” the Captain mused, “but I never expected that would involve bewitchment by the flora.”

“Captain Malik,” stammered Asbel, pushing himself up. “I wasn't trying to—I was just...”

His toe caught in the undergrowth, and he tumbled into the bush a second time. More branches snapped to the tune of his shattered dignity. When the Captain seized his arm and hauled him upright, Asbel did his best to hide his face behind his free hand. He was blushing. He was sure he was blushing. How could this happen in front of the _Captain_ of all people? Utterly humiliating.

“Easy, kid. You alright?”

“I'm fine.” He cringed at the tiny crack in his voice. “I apologize for losing focus, Captain. It won't happen again.”

“At ease, Asbel. Seventeen is a hard age for any man.”

Age or the lack of it was no excuse for slacking off, Asbel thought. Patrol was patrol, even for students, and even a moment's indiscretion could mean death. Still, he accepted the Captain's leniency with a grateful nod.

“I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that, but you looked so dazed I couldn't resist. Be honest. You were thinking of the ambassador's son, weren't you?”

Asbel choked, whether on air or on his own saliva, he wasn't sure. The Captain's heavy hand soon clapped his back, while the man himself shook with laughter.

“You're too easy to read.”

“Don't tease him so much, Captain,” chided Victoria. “He'll never learn to take his role as a knight seriously. If he dies in here, it's on your head.”

“No danger of that. He can hold his own with a sword well enough.”

“Not to belittle Asbel's swordsmanship, but Orlan Woods is hardly the place to test that out.”

“It's exactly the place to test it out. Don't worry, Victoria. I'm here too.”

Victoria did not look convinced. She fixed Asbel with an icy glare, the meaning of which he didn't have to strain too hard to guess. She'd told him before coming out here, after all, that inexperience and carelessness were killers, and that if Asbel's inexperience or carelessness got the Captain injured or worse, she would flay him alive with a fork.

Asbel tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword.

“No notable activity in this region,” he clipped. “There are traces of large animals, but nothing more unusual than the average wolf or bear. If bandits have been by here, they cleared out a long time ago.”'

Victoria's eye twitched. The Captain grinned.

“So you were paying attention,” said Malik. “Well done. And yes,” he added, silencing Victoria with a look, “I swept the area too. It's as Asbel says. If there are bandits still hiding here, they're either damn good or they're damn blessed.”

“The villagers swear—”

“The villagers swear a lot of things. No one can survive in here, Victoria, you know that. Even if they managed, they'd leave some sort of trace. The wolves and bears would put up a fight, and the only thing those beasts have been fighting these days is each other and the unlucky trees that get in their way.”

Yes, no casualties these days. No civilian casualties ever since they evacuated the last of the elderly villagers still clinging to the life they'd built in this dangerous place. That was a full year ago, when Asbel's hands-on training had not yet begun. With no villagers left to rob, most of the bandits had cleared out. With no villagers to protect from bandits and the occasional uncharacteristically angry animal, the knights had stopped venturing into Orlan regularly, and their casualties had diminished, too. Once in awhile, the odd villager from the edge of the forest would venture in to forage one thing or another, or to retrieve something they'd left behind; they'd return from these ill-advised expeditions with rumors of this and that, but none of their stories ever turned up a thing, sinister or otherwise.

Still, Victoria seemed worried, and that made Asbel worry. She inclined towards the sharp end of paranoia (not unlike Hubert in that regard, he mused), but in all the time he had been studying and training under her, Asbel had never known Victoria to worry over nothing.

“I'll do a second sweep,” he stated, stepping away.

“No.”

Victoria's voice, though softer than before, was nonetheless firm. The command, softly issued though it was, was still a command. Asbel froze in place. Victoria turned her hard gaze from Asbel and Malik to peer in the direction of the palace.

“It's getting late. Orlan only grows more inhospitable as the sun goes down. If you say there are no bandits, then there are no bandits. We shouldn't waste our time here.”

Her lips pursed, just for a moment, and Asbel supposed it was a gesture neither he nor the Captain were meant to see. He didn't say anything, but apprehension crept under his skin like tiny spiders crawling up from his extremities to settle at the base of his skull. He clapped his hand over the back of his neck, as if he could massage the spiders away. Something was wrong. Very wrong, but what?

Malik spoke first.

“I feel like I'm going to lose my position as captain to you, if you keep giving orders like that. I'm inclined to listen to you.”

“Luckily for you, I'm not interested in your position.”

And that was the end of that.

They were out of the woods and marching up to the palace's back gates before the sun fully sank into the western sea.

“Not the front gate,” Victoria chided when Asbel turned for the main palace entrance. “Can you imagine the uproar a fully armed knight would cause tramping through the a flock of nobility like a lost cow?”

Asbel was embarrassed. Of course he knew such a thing was unacceptable. As the charge of the ambassador, he would have besmirched his good benefactor's name. 'Ferdinand raised chattle,' they would whisper behind their paper fans, and Aston would surely drag Asbel back to Lhant by the ears.

A clap on the back from Captain Malik brought him out of his head and back into the moment. The sun was still to set, but the shadow cast by the palace made it cool and dark. It took Asbel a couple blinks to realize the Captain and Victoria were bidding him farewell, right outside one of the palace's many back doors. This door in particular led to the knights' hall.

“Victoria and I still have patrols to run,” said the Captain when Asbel gazed at him blankly. “We can't have any shady types sneaking in during all the distraction.”

“I'll come with you,” Asbel said, far too quickly. Before he could take a single step, the Captain had a hand square in the center of his chest, pushing him towards the door.

“Oh no, you don't. You're expected to represent Lhant and the ambassador at the gala tonight. Don't think you're getting out of it that easily.”

Why, oh why would the Captain remember or even care about something like that?

“It's as the Captain says,” Victoria chimed in. “Don't even think about wasting our time by arguing. Captain?”

“We're off, then.”

And so they were, shadows vanishing into other shadows as they left Asbel twisting the hilt of his blade over and over.

_Hand on hand, feet facing feet, right hand on waist, follow the music, don't look into his eyes, or do, but don't trip, for mercy's sake, do not trip._

Asbel took five deep breaths, like Richard taught him to do right before the first time they took their sword proficiency test together. Asbel had begun to panic, his breaths coming hard and fast until he felt like he was choking on the very air and that his heart would stop. At that time, Richard took both his hands, stared him firmly in the eyes, and told him to breathe in deeply, slowly, five times, for five counts each. It was hard catching his breath long enough to even begin to hold it for five counts, let alone to do it five times. His eyes swam black at the edges, but somehow, with Richard fixed at the center of his vision, he wasn't as worried as he might have been otherwise. And so his breathing slowed. And so his heart calmed. They both passed the test with flying colors, as Richard promised they would.

Five breaths. Five counts. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

He was as ready as he'd ever be.

 

* * *

 

The slow trill of so many violins made him dizzy. Or perhaps it was the herds and herds of people, nobles and dazzling all, that made his head spin. His knight training kicked his senses into overdrive, and he perceived potential threats in every shadow, in every obscured hand, in every curled lip. It wasn't fear, exactly; more like apprehension tinged with not a little discomfort. No, he was too well-trained to be afraid of this. Captain Malik made sure of that.

Still, he would pick the forbidding unknown of Orlan Woods over this madness any day.

He pulled at his collar, cringing at the sticky feel of sweat coating his neck and chest.

“It's not King Desmond's finest display,” interjected a warmly familiar voice, “but at least the music isn't terrible. You should attend one of Duchess Gilford's winter balls someday. Her musical tastes are...unique, to say the least.”

Asbel turned to Richard with a wide grin.

“I'll pass,” said Asbel. “I heard the Duchess sing once, and that was more than enough for me.”

The laugh Richard graced him with was soft yet no less merry, smile obscured behind a gloved hand. Asbel's heart hitched in his throat. He had seen Richard upset enough times by now to want to always make him smile like that. He'd seen Richard's fear, held it near each time he slung an arm protectively across Richard's shoulders to reassure him, been close enough time and again to see the wariness in his eyes. He knew Richard had dreams that left him thrashing in the middle of the night; Sophie told him as much. Asbel always knew which nights those dreams plagued his friend, because the next morning Richard would attend lessons pale and trembling, dark rings to bring out the gray of his eyes. It took months for Richard to confess that he always dreamed of a certain knight, pure and perfect and everything a knight could ever hope to be. Since he learned of this knight, Asbel strove every day to become him.

Embarrassingly enough—and Asbel always tried to forget it, though at the time the only thing on his mind was comforting Richard—it was in the Knight Academy training courtyard that Asbel took hold of Richard's hand and declared in front of god and country that he would always be by Richard's side, protecting him come what may. Richard turned bright red. Of course he did. But he smiled, too. And that was all the reward Asbel needed.

Richard even gave him a ring, which glinted now in the glaring ballroom lights as Asbel extended his hand and bent the slightest bit at the waist. Richard cocked an eyebrow at him.

“My lord,” began Asbel, and the words bit foreign on his tongue. He thought he might choke on his own nerve. “May...er May I...”

He was making a fool of himself. Nearby, nosy nobles bent their ears to listen, peeked over their fans to have a look at the fiasco Asbel was seconds away from creating. This was a stupid idea.

_Eyes on feet, feet looking, hands somewhere, tripping, don't stare, don't stare—_

And then Richard took his outstretched hand. And then Richard smiled. And then it was all worth it.

“You may,” Richard murmured.

He pulled Asbel to the dance floor, where other pairs twirled about like sparkling stars circling one another in the night sky. Hands clasped. Other hand around waist. Feet square, eyes staring into a storm. No amount of lessons in Asbel's life could ever have prepared him for the moment they began to dance.

They merged seamlessly into the other lines of dancers, yet somehow it was as though they were the only pair in the world. No one particularly minded the fact of two men dancing together; there were, after all, other male pairs and a number of female pairs, friends and lovers both. The novelty was that they were the ambassador's son and the ambassador's charge. Everyone knew them. At the moment, however, the pair in question only knew each other.

There was very little in the world that matched Asbel's feelings as he held Richard so close to him he could see the color variations in his eyes, drops of dark gray flecking smooth slate. A sense of overwhelming familiarity, like climbing the windmills in Lhant and staring out over hills of green pasture all the way to the sun spangled sea. His heart didn't settle. He shook with the nearness of it all. He thought he was leading, but if Richard wasn't there to hold him upright Asbel was sure he'd collapse into a puddle (exactly what the Captain told him _not_ to do).

Richard, for his part, looked calm as you please. He even grinned a little, which set Asbel's face on fire. At the end of a twirl, when Asbel pulled Richard back in to press him against his chest, Richard leaned in and whispered to him.

“You're doing fine, Asbel. Those lessons really paid off. Don't worry so much.”

All of the spinning had nothing to do with how dizzy Asbel suddenly felt. His grip on Richard tightened, his hand on the other's back pressing firmer, holding closer. His steps came easier, more naturally. With every pass they made across the dance floor, his head grew lighter, even as his confidence grew. It was because of Richard, he realized. Focusing on him and nothing else—on those eyes framed just so by that golden fringe so that they caught an amber glow, on the deep dark of pupils trained solely on Asbel in a way that cast his own reflection back at him—made everything else in the ballroom, in the kingdom, in the world, melt away. He wasn't thinking about how the two of them must look, heretofore awkward ducklings whirling in the spotlight. He wasn't thinking about the sweat trickling down his back. He wasn't thinking about the ambassador, or even about his father. Everything in existence was contained in that moment in the space between him and Richard (which, even as Asbel drew their bodies closer and closer, was too great for comfort). This was _right_ , the only truly right thing in all his life. He believed that more than anything.

And then the song was over, and Asbel felt like they hadn't had nearly enough time. There was much and more he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the words. He reached for them as he and Richard bowed to one another, wracked his brain for anything as they left the dance floor. He came up blank. Before he knew it, Richard's attention was swept away by nobles clamoring for favors from the ambassador's son: young men vying for a rung up on the political ladder, young ladies asking him for the honor of a dance and hoping, perhaps, for more. The world came flooding back, unforgiving.

A hand on the shoulder pulled Asbel from his sullen thoughts.

He was surprised but not unhappy to see Hubert standing beside him. He caught his little brother in a tight embrace. Had it really been four years? Hubert was so tall now, and wearing glasses, and despite all still the watery-eyed little boy Asbel remembered tailing him around Lhant with Cheria in tow. Speaking of Cheria, there she was, smiling behind Hubert in an elegant peach gown that accentuated the scarlet of her hair.

“Wow Cheria, you look...” He reached for the right words as Cheria blinked at him expectantly. “Healthy!”

Cheria rewarded him with a firm punch to the shoulder. Apart from her strength, not much had changed in four years, it seemed.

“Of course I'm healthy! You're not the only one that's been working hard. When did you learn to dance like that?”

Heat creeped into Asbel's face. He mumbled something about lessons these past years. Hubert expressed alarm at Asbel's ability to dedicate himself to one thing for so long, but the exact words were lost in the buzzing in Asbel's head. He didn't mention that he'd also dedicated himself to being a knight—one of the many things about Asbel's life in Barona he never mentioned in his letters home. His father most certainly would have expressed disapproval, as it fell to Asbel to inheret the title of Mayor of Lhant one day. His father's dream, not his own.

Speaking of his father...

Asbel glanced around the ballroom, seeking the stern face and dark hair he remembered so vividly from his childhood. Instead he fell back to Cheria and Hubert's solemn expressions.

“Father isn't here,” said Hubert. “There's much to tell you...Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

Doing his best to ignore the warning bells in his head, Asbel led Hubert and Cheria out of the ballroom, onto one of the many adjoining balconies; this one was suspended to face the sea, bright even in the darkness with the moon glistening across its obsidian waves. Nearby, Gloandi gleamed dully green.

The first time Asbel saw Gloandi was with Richard by his side. It was their first day in back in Barona, but they'd grown so close on the journey it was as if they'd been born attached at the wrists.They ran to Gloandi hand-in-hand, and climbed the Valkinas-Cryas despite all of Bryce's shouting at them something about disgracing a national treasure. Ferdinand's booming laughter followed them all the way up, and from the top they saw Sophie smiling her softest smile.

Sophie always looked at the two of them with a hint of sadness in her eyes. For the longest time, Asbel wished that with a joke and a hug he could wash that sadness away, but it was deep in her, a knot rooted in her core never to be undone. He'd grown to accept that, but it was a hard thought that he somehow caused her pain. Asbel loved Sophie, just as Richard loved Sophie. She was impossible not to love. And clearly, with all her tender, timeless heart, she loved Richard and Asbel as much and more.

Those were his thoughts as he beheld Gloandi's weak pulsations, a beacon to ships passing in the night. Hubert and Cheria were silent beside him awhile, until Cheria excused herself for water. Only then did Hubert speak again.

“Asbel, did you ever read that book I gave you? The book of myths with the scarlet “L” stitched onto the cover?”

“Er...honestly? No. I never had the time.”

Between knight training, academic lessons about world history, Windorian politics, and cryas science, extra reading was out of the question. Nevermind that he'd spent most of his free time causing all sorts of mischief with Richard. The pranks the two of them played were the stuff of legends. Still, he did remember the beautiful white-bound book Hubert gave to him the day he left Lhant for Barona. He'd thumbed through it a few times on the way over, mesmerized by the detailed ink drawings of a town bursting with flowers and a road clear of the walls of shrubs and thorns he was so familiar with. There had even been sections on each of the Valkines-Cryas, how the heroes of the tale saved each one from a dark, ailing creature referred to only as “Lambda.” Asbel hadn't gotten much farther than that, though.

Hubert shook his head, obviously disappointed if not unsurprised. Asbel sheepishly rubbed at the back of his neck.

“There is so much to tell you, Asbel. There are things happening lately that...that make me believe the stories in that book are more than stories.”

“I'm not sure I follow you, little bro.”

“Don't call me that. We aren't children anymore.”

The sharp tone of Hubert's voice startled him into silence

“To be honest, I'm not here as Hubert Lhant.”

“What do you...?”

“A couple of years after you left, I was adopted. Father wanted me to have an opportunity to make something of myself, and he knew I couldn't do that in Lhant. I was adopted by a man in Strahta, and I've been studying under him ever since. I'm Hubert Oswell, now.”

“Why didn't you ever tell me? That's seems kind of important, don't you think?”

“It didn't matter. You had your life here, and I had my life there. The only reason I'm here now on behalf of father is because...”

The ominous feeling came back and settled in Asbel's gut like a lump of frozen coal. He braced himself against the balcony railing, twisting it in his grip.

With a heavy sigh, Hubert pinched the bridge of his nose and continued. “Father is at home, with mother. He refused to tell you, but these past years he's taken ill. He's gotten worse every year since you left, and this year he was too sick to travel. He's bedridden, Asbel. He asked me to represent him in his stead, and my father—my foster father—gave his permission. Father...well, there seems no point in lying to you about it. He doesn't believe he has much time left. He wants you to come home. You are to be the next Mayor of Lhant, and you...Asbel?!”

Cheria caught him by the elbow. He hadn't even realized he was falling over, nor even that Cheria had returned, only that the sky and sea ran together likee a splashed painting around him.

Father, ill? _Dying_? Not Aston Lhant. Not the steady wall of a man who towered over anything and everything in his path. When was the last time they'd spoken to each other? What was the last thing he said to him? He couldn't remember.

His breath came as if through a thin reed. At his elbow, he heard Cheria speaking as if from underwater. Before he knew it he was sitting, back against the cool palace wall and the night air chill on his prickling skin. Cheria knelt beside him, rubbing his shoulder. In front of him knelt Hubert, staring into his eyes.

“I'm sorry, brother,” Hubert said. “I didn't mean to alarm you like that.”

“No, I...No. Thank you for telling me.”

“Don't get up too fast,” Cheria warned as Asbel stood. “Sit for a little.”

“There's more, Asbel,” Hubert went on. “Since you left, the Wilds have been creeping closer and closer to Lhant. Just this year, vines finally started climbing up the town walls and strange, corrupted creatures began to attack. We've never had this problem before, but...”

“But...?”

“To be honest, it sounds a lot like the stories in that book. Strange creatures, Asbel leaving Lhant for Barona to become a knight—yes, I know you're a knight, don't you dare try to deny it—Hubert's adoption, the Mayor of Lhant dying suddenly...it's all too similar to be just a coincidence.”

“I'm not...what are you saying? I don't follow.”

“I'm _saying_ these stories might be real. They might be happening to us, maybe for the first time, maybe again, but either way we need to be careful.”

“You mean, there's a way to save father?”

“No, Asbel. I'm saying that they die. The heroes in the story, the knight, the king...They all die.”

Asbel's head swam anew. This was all too much, and way too fast. First thing's first, he had to get back to Lhant, immediately. He had to be by his father's side. Captain Malik would have to be informed, permission for leave granted. There was no reason Asbel's request would be denied given that...

_What is that?_

Asbel squinted in the direction of Orlan Woods, where a red glow loomed menacingly into the sky. At that moment a cry went out through the ballroom. Asbel recognized the Captain's bellow at once.

“ _Knights, Assemble!”_

Almost on instinct, Asbel sprinted back into the ballroom, where the troops were already half gathered. He heard Cheria and Hubert calling out behind him, but he didn't have time to excuse himself. Asbel fell into line with the other young initiates under Victoria's direct command and took the sword that was handed to him. The glance Victoria shot him chilled him to his core.

All around the ballroom, nobles huddled together, muttering nervously to one another. They rimmed the edges of the great room and left most of the floorspace to the knights. Asbel caught Richard's anxious gaze by the staircase, where he was flanked by Sophie on one side and by Bryce, his fencing tutor and personal guard, on the other.

“Orlan Village is under attack,” Malik explained in his booming voice, both to the knights and to the agitated nobility. “We suspect a small contingent of bandits, nothing more, but just in case we will leave a small company here for your protection. I urge you to stay inside the palace until the matter is resolved. Knights, we march!”

His command was taken up by the Lieutenants, and one by one each gathered company peeled out of the ballroom, out of the palace, and were soon on the march towards Orlan Woods.

Of course Asbel felt responsible. The off feeling he'd gotten during patrol came back to him like a stab to the gut. He swept the woods forwards and backwards and didn't detect a thing out of place. Now the villagers of Orlan were paying the price. No wonder Victoria glared at him so coldly.

By the time they arrived, most of the village was awash in flames. Villagers poured from collapsing heaps of wood and stone, soot-blackened and wild-eyed. At once Malik directed one company to rescue duty, escorting people safely through the mayhem and pulling who they could from the depths of the fires. The remaining companies were to weed out the “bandits” and eliminate them.

Although Asbel could tell at a glance that no bandits worthy of the name would ever do something like this. There was no profit in burning everything to the ground.

He didn't have to wonder about it long.

A beast with a neck like a snake, dripping flame from its jaws onto its black, wolfish paws, burst through heaps of flaming rubble and scattered bits of molten debris across the earth. Asbel dove out of the way of a stray stone, but the young knight next to him wasn't so lucky. He watched in horror as his companion's helmet caved beneath the fiery rock, and all that remained was a body twitching bloody at his feet.

The Captain's booming command cut through all the screaming horror like the last solid ground in a flood: “ _Flank it_!”

Asbel swam hard for that ground, falling into the line of knights circling around to the beast's hindside while another company of knights dodged its swiping claws from the front. Soon they had the thing surrounded. Asbel was about to attack when the creature's long, spiked tail swept out and knocked them all off their feet. He landed hard on his shoulder, crying out in time with a sharp _crack._ He didn't have time to assess the damage, as the creature then brought its tail slamming down like a hammer. Asbel rolled out of the way, thankful, at least, that he hadn't hurt his sword arm. He rolled to his feet, coming up under another swipe of the creature's tail, and jabbed his sword deep into the creature's back thigh.

Or at least, his sword should have sunk deep.

Instead, Asbel's blade glanced off the creature's leg like a fly bouncing off glass. The creature whirled on him with a swipe of its paw, would have snapped him dead with those flame filled fangs if Captain Malik had not beamed it in the head with his bladerang.

“Get out of there, Asbel!” the Captain screamed.

But Asbel couldn't move. His left arm throbbed horribly, wouldn't so much as twitch. The monster had swiped him clean across the chest. All he felt was searing pain. All he tasted was the copper liquid bubbling up in his throat. This was how it would end. There was something achingly familiar about this scene, something about it that resembled a nightmare he once had; only in that nightmare it was Richard dying, not himself. Asbel liked it better this way. He was only sorry to leave his brother, Cheria, Richard behind.

There was the monster, descending on him again.

“ _Give me your sword_.”

Asbel started. Had the monster spoken to him?

“ _Give. Me. Your. Sword. I will not ask you again.”_

_Take it_ , Asbel thought, laughing to himself (though all that came out was a hoarse, choking splutter). _I must be losing my mind..._

“ _Wise decision.”_

Suddenly, Asbel was not himself. Or he was, but he wasn't where he should be. He floated, weightless, in a world of endless blue, with water like a mirror rippling soft beneath him. Across from him hovered a mass of purple and black. It was from the mass that the voice emanated, deep as time and as at once hollow and vast.

“ _You do not remember me, Asbel Lhant. I am Lambda. Leave your life in my hands.”_

Just like that, Asbel was back in the real world, dodging the monster's arttack as if time had slowed down for his benefit. Light poured from his sword in a blinding flash, and when next he struck at the creature's neck, it severed clean as a split log. The body collapsed in a heap of black fumes, the head and torso writhing like twin snakes.

Asbel dropped to his knees. His sword fell from his hand with a clatter. His vision swam black at the edges, but something inside pulled him back up from the dizzy dark as if from the depths of a well.

“ _Keep your head. You have been betrayed.”_

“Asbel!”

Captain Malik ran to him, concern—and fear?—etched into every line of his face.

“Asbel, are you alright? What did you do?”

“I...I don't...”

No words could cut through the headache that split his skull in the next instant. He put his left hand to his head and was shocked when he realized the arm wasn't broken. It didn't even hurt anymore. He ran his hands over his chest, where the creature had swiped him with its burning claws. Nothing. Not even scars to show where his skin had torn. The Captain looked, as well, at the tatters where a wound should have been but wasn't. Asbel and the Captain stared at one another in wonder. Before any more questions were asked, a knight barreled into the village on horseback from the direction of the palace.

“It's a coup! There's been a coup! Ambassador Ferdinand's troops have slain the king!”

“No,” Asbel wheezed. “It can't be true.”

Malik glowered. “Report, soldier!”

The knight pulled up beside the Captain and Asbel, and by his nearness and the light of the still burning flames Asbel saw the blood flecked armor, the wild eyes.

“Ambassador Ferdinand and his son are both dead, slain by Vice Chancellor Cedric as traitors. The Vice Chancellor has declared himself regent, and all knights are under suspicion of treachery. We must retreat into the woods before—”

An arrow sprouted from the knight's back. He fell dead in an instant. Captain Malik pushed Asbel down as another volley of arrows flew in their direction.

“Move, Asbel!”

He crawled for his life, knowing nothing, feeling nothing. Richard was gone. Dead. No, it couldn't be true. There was just no way...

He felt like a piece of himself had been torn away, shredded by so many blades. Torn out by the creature's heavy claws. It felt like only moments earlier they were dancing, standing so close. Where was the mysterious voice now, to offer him comfort? Silent. Nothing to say, because it wasn't real. Asbel was tired, so, so tired. He couldn't keep running. He tripped over a log and got tangled up in a mass of brambles. The Captain hoisted him up by the back of his coat.

“Keep moving. Don't give up now. Asbel, don't give up.”

But there was no way he could keep his feet. Darkness won. He sunk into it gladly.

 


	5. re:sent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, he carried on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit fast-paced, this one. Then again, I think that everything I write is the worst. Might add more to it later on, so please be aware of that. Sorry for the 4-year wait!

Fourier had always called her “odd.”

As a child, and then as an adult, she would spend long mornings in front of the mirror standing on her head, her tongue out, her eyes crossed, looking for some trace of that word, that “odd,” inside her, but she never did find it. She never did understand. Not even the driving cold of Fendel could bring it out of her. Not even the heavy heat of the Windorian summer sea.

It wasn’t until she met “Windor” that the word finally burst with flavour in her mouth.

 _Odd_ . Windor was _odd_.

He couldn’t clean, for one thing. Couldn’t cook, couldn’t hoist a sail, couldn’t man the guns. Most nights, he didn’t even sleep. What sort of a man didn’t sleep? About all he seemed good for was waving a sword around, which he did excellently, mechanically, albeit with half a heart. His tragedy was palpable, and most of the crew steered clear of him as much as possible.

Well, Pascal never was one for steering clear of anything, ever. Windor, with his not-quite-auburn hair and his shadowed ocean eyes, fascinated her as much as any Valkinas Cryas.

Of course, Windor wasn’t his real name any more than Cap (short for Captain, which Murphy forbade the crew to call him, not that Pascal listened) was Cap’s real name.

Neither Windor nor Cap shared their real names in the two years since they’d set foot on Murphy’s ship.The two were caught along the coast fleeing Orlan Woods three days after the attempted coup in Barona. Windor was near dead, slung over Cap’s shoulder like hunted game, and Murphy would have cashed in the bounty on their clearly knighted heads if not for Cap’s easy charm. Pascal saw right through him, of course, but she liked Cap, and her heart lurched at the sight of Windor sitting like a drunk puppy, glossy-eyed with his narrow wrists tied behind his back. So she kept her mouth shut and quietly admired Cap’s smooth-talking his way into joining the crew.

Cap took easy to their lifestyle, but Windor was no pirate. When he wasn’t sulking, he was throwing up over the guardrail. It took some months for him to notice Pascal following him around, even though she chattered constantly. She spoke of clouds passing and seasons changing, of fish leaping, the concerning smell emanating from her boots - anything to fill his silence and get his heart beating again. He almost never replied to her, but eventually got into the habit of at least looking at her when she spoke and occasionally nodding his acknowledgement.

He wasn’t a bad guy. Pascal knew bad guys, had spent the last year or so with her share of them, pirates all, suspected Cap himself might not be altogether good, but Windor - there wasn’t a bad cell in his body.

His hair grew longer and shaggier, his chest broader, but the glum boy dragged out of the woods seemed never to leave the thicket of trees behind. Pascal wondered every day what horrors he must have seen, but she knew better than to pry. Ruthless and precise as he was in battle, it was clear that any pressure applied to his carefully nurtured shell would collapse him totally and irreparably.

So she bided her time. She let him be odd. Windor and only Windor had ever made that word vibrate in her blood like a living thing.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re in love with him.”

Oh, Cap.

He regarded Pascal with his ever-guarded honey eyes (honey in the light, timber in shadow). She detected the mistrust, the warning in his voice. Windor stood at the prow, gazing as he was wont at the expansive sea.

“I’m a pirate,” Pascal chirped. “Who has time for love when there’s booty to plunder? Argh!”

She closed one eye and mimicked raising a hooked hand.

“Just be gentle with him,” said Cap. “He’s suffered a blow he might never recover from.”

“And you, Cap?” Pascal asked. “Have you been blown?”

“I’m going to step right over that one.”

Pascal gave her widest, cheekiest grin, pointing her index fingers at either side of her face.

“You send and receive looooots of carrier pigeons,” she pointed out. Cap went almost imperceptibly tense before she added, “I won’t tell Murph, but I’m soooo curious. What are they? Love letters? Political intrigue? Tell me, tell me, pretty please?”

“If you must know, I’m a government spy. Oh, yes. Top rank. Lethal secrets. Dangerous stuff.”

It was so easy to joke around with Cap like this. He was always conspiratorial, and oh so easy to distract. He thought he was side-stepping her, but he wasn’t questioning her fascination with Windor anymore.

Speaking of Windor, he approached them, as always half-alive.

“There’s a storm,” he murmured. “Moving fast. Heavy rain tonight.”

He was pale, trembling in advance. High waves and the ship’s rise and fall made him queasy, only, with the risk of being washed overboard when topside, his only recourse was to empty his stomach into a bucket, which more often than not slopped across his feet. Pascal concocted an elixir for him long ago, but it hadn’t helped much. She wished she could do more, but herbalism wasn’t really her specialty.

“Try keeping your head between your knees,” she suggested cheerfully.

Windor frowned. “I don’t think…”

“Windor!” Murphy bellowed from the top mast. “Pascal! Secure the sails! Storm’s moving in!”

“C’mon, soldier,” Pascal said, punching Windor on the arm. “Let’s hop to!”

Windor ran a thin and ever-thinning hand through the mop on his head. Hard to keep on weight when pretty much everything you ate came back up every day. Pascal worried that it wouldn’t be long until Windor was bed-ridden, and who knew what Murphy would do with him then. He never did tolerate useless trinkets.

She set about hauling ropes and folding up the sails snug against their masts, giving Windor pointers where she could. It was obvious he wasn’t paying attention, so Pascal, as usual, did the work for both of them as secretly as able. Best if Murphy didn’t know how slow and ineffective Windor was regarding literally everything to do with the ship’s upkeep. Mercifully, Murphy wasn’t the most observant man.

Black clouds rolled in within the hour. Already the ship tossed and heaved and groaned its displeasure. Darkness like nightfall seized them as suddenly as the sky opened up and spit its weight in rain. Everyone hurried below deck in silence, save for Murphy and a handful of the more experienced sailors (Cap among them) who would navigate the storm and keep the ship afloat - and everyone on board alive.

Pascal wasn’t afraid of death, per se. Like everything unexplained to its fullest, it filled her to bursting with wild curiosity. Still, drowning didn’t seem like a fun way to go.

Really, she was more concerned about Windor sitting dead-eyed across from her on his hammock. There was a man for whom death meant nothing, nothing. Quietly, Pascal took Windor’s hand. He glanced up a moment from beneath his overgrown bangs, not really seeing her, not really seeing anything. Pascal’s throat constricted and her lips pursed tight. She wanted to say something, anything, but for once she felt words inappropriate.  

The ship lurched. Pascal tumbled forward into Windor’s arms. He gripped her tight, and she was shocked a moment at how warm he was. It didn’t seem right for someone so thin, fading and fading fast, to run so hot. Sea salt clung to him, overlaying a scent like fresh cut pine mingled with the earth after rain.

“Careful,” Windor whispered, and the faintest shadow of a smile graced his features. He looked like another man, then, someone from an altogether different world.

Pascal lit up. Her cheeks stretched wide in a broad grin, so wide her face ached.

“So the mysterious knight does feel,” she remarked.

Windor’s lips twitched. Pascal scooted herself beside him on the hammock and interlocked her arm with his. He did not resist or push her away.

“Storms are awful, aren’t they?” she said. “But there’s something cool about them, too. Like, way cool. I just love the sound of rain.”

“I remember the storms in my town,” Windor said, wistful, dazed. His blue, blue eyes travelled across time and space to somewhere Pascal couldn’t see. “I’d climb the tallest windmill and huddle up inside with a blanket. Sometimes my little brother was there. Most times I was alone. I liked to see the world turn gray. And the smell…”

Windor closed his eyes. Tilted his head up. Inhaled slowly and deeply, reaching long and far across his memory.

“When it rained in Lhant,” he went on, eyes still lightly shut, “you could almost believe there were flowers.”

Pascal’s heart beat heavy and rapid in her chest, like a bound bird. She’d never felt anything quite like this before - at least, nothing like this that was caused by another person. Sure puzzles and riddles and experiments excited her, but they had a function, a solvable purpose and an answer she strove with all her inexhaustible energy to discover. Windor, she supposed, was a puzzle. Windor was more than a puzzle. Pascal found herself flustered and dreadfully confused.

“Sooooo,” she sang, pushing her conflict at arm’s length. “A small-town boy? What took you to Barona?”

It was the wrong question.

Windor trembled against her side, clenching and  unclenching his fists. His eyes, half-lidded, dimmed where for the briefest moment they had been bright.

“Woah, hey,” said Pascal, putting a hand to the back of his neck. Her thumb rested on his pulse, a frantic, erratic _thrumthrumthrumthrum_. “I didn’t mean to shake you up, Win, I promise. Forget I asked, okay? We’ve all got things we keep to ourselves. It’s healthy! It’s normal! We’re normal, healthy people!”

Windor shook with defeated laughter. Buried his face in his hands.

“It’s alright,” he said at last, and Pascal let out the breath straining her lungs. “I wish - ”

Windor’s face went green. He reached for the bucket beside his hammock, retched hard. Nothing came up. He was as empty as his depthless eyes.

Pascal rubbed consoling circles on his back.

“You didn’t eat today, did you.”

Statement, not question.

Windor gave her the saddest, sorriest smile she’d ever seen.

“No appetite,” he said, simply.

He was withering away before her, and there was nothing she could do.

“Win - ”

Another lurch, violent, sent the ship sideways. The hammock deposited Windor and Pascal onto the floor in a tangled heap.

Shouts from above. Screams, even. Pascal’s blood ran cold even as thrilled excitement coursed through her. This was it. The fun part. Things happening. The joy of being a pirate at the whim of the open sea.

Windor leapt to attention at once, reached for his sheathed sword. He cast Pascal a meaning glance and took her hand to haul her up, nodding once, determined. Cap rushed up to them from who knew where, bladerang slung across his back.

“Exciting storm,” Cap commented lightly, though his expression was focused and hard as only a veteran soldier’s could be. “We’d better get up there.”

“Right behind you, Cap,” said Windor, apparently forgetting that Cap should have been topside to begin with.

Pascal shrugged it off. There were better things to worry about just now.

“Go, go, go!” Pascal chimed, reaching for her quarterstaff. “The fun begins!”

Together, they hurried to the deck. The crew was at the ready, Murphy standing daggers in hand, scowling. Something was very, very wrong. Murphy’s squinting eyes peered out into the suddenly still darkness. Too still. Too quiet.

Pascal gripped her quarterstaff tighter and held it close against her body. On either side of her, Cap and Windor, stance battle-ready.

Murphy opened his mouth to speak.

A screeching, gutteral roar cut him off. The ship rocked with a loud groan, knocking every single person flat.

Murphy shouted, “Leviathan!”

Nothing in Pascal’s life prepared her for the creature that came looming up from beneath the waves to cast its black shadow over the already darkened deck. Long and wide around, glistening teeth as large as a man was tall and dripping with menace. Beady eyes set into a head with fins fanning out that expanded and shook when the thing roared again.

The crew scrambled to their feet, grabbing for weapons that flew free of them when they fell.

No one was fast enough.

The Leviathan snatched five screaming men into its jaws before anyone could react and snapped them into pieces. Murphy shouted indistinctly above the mayhem. If he gave orders, Pascal didn’t hear them. Still, every person stood their ground. They were tough, seasoned fighters all.

Cap flung his bladerang and struck the creature on the side of its head. All it achieved was to infuriate the thing further. It came crashing down on the ship, splintering it through, crushing pirates beneath its weight. Men and women leapt at it while it was within their reach, slashing, stabbing. The Leviathan caught many and more of them between its snapping teeth. Blood spattered until what remained of the deck was slick with it.

Pascal charged forward, barely keeping her footing on the blood drenched and slowly sinking ship, Cap and Windor beside her. With a “hyah!” she struck the creature’s snouth, while Windor plunged his blade into its jaw. The three of them froze when the blade glanced harmlessly away.

Windor’s eyes went wide.

“This - ”

Before he could finish his thought, the Leviathan knocked him viciously aside with a swing of its mighty head.

“Windor!” Pascal screamed.

No. No, no, no, no. He was dead. Surely he was dead. No human being could have survived that.

Loss forced a choking sob into Pascal’s throat, for she _had_ loved him, she realized. All the oddity, all the fascination, all the confusion. She’d loved him as her dearest, most treasured friend, loved him like the brother she never had and now never would again. Pascal swayed on her feet, hot tears spilling across her cheeks while she chewed and chewed at her bottom lip.

“Keep your head,” Cap shouted, gripping her arm. “This fight isn’t over!”

He was right, of course, though Pascal had no hunger for it now.

Grief turned to fear turned to sickening rage. With a roar she struck at the Leviathan’s body again and again and again. Cap threw his bladerang. Pirates swarmed. Nothing did it any discernable damage. It came at them mercilessly, unrelenting, with all the force of the storm behind it. Water pooled around Pascal’s ankles.

This was it, then. This was how she would die.

In her last moments she thought of Fourier and regretted that she would be leaving her alone in all the world. She thought of Fendel, of Forbrannir, of all the secrets she would never unlock, of all the things in life she’d never see and never know. As the Levaithan bore down on her, jaws open to kill, Pascal squeezed her eyes shut, and in the dark behind them saw Windor’s face welcoming her to the beyond.

Suddenly, a flash of light so bright Pascal saw it through her eyelids. She opened her eyes, heart hammering thick in her throat.

Windor flew at the Leviathan, glowing, and plunged his brilliant, sparking blade into the creature’s eye. The Leviathan screamed, reared back. Windor, standing on its head high above, drove his sword into the Leviathan’s skull like it was a wheel of cheese. Pink lightning surrounded him. Drawing out his sword, Windor jumped off the Leviathan’s head as it went crashing back into the black sea from whence it came.

The ship was soon to follow it. All Pascal felt was crippling relief. All Pascal saw was Windor, shining, soaked through, a fierce, murderous look in his violet eyes.

* * *

 Asbel vibrated with power he hadn’t felt since that long ago night in Orlan Woods. He should have died, then. He should have been dead now. His ribs collapsed when the Leviathan struck him, puncturing his lungs. His chest caved in. Breath left him in a bloody rush. He knew it was the end, and all he thought of was Richard, how he’d be reunited with him soon. Through the pain, through the terror, a wave of peace and relief.

Then, that once-ago, nearly forgotten voice shook him back to life.

_“Fool. You thought I’d let you go?”_

Asbel’s body tingled from scalp to fingertips to toes. The pain dissipated as though it was never there, as though he’d never once known pain in all his life. Next he knew he was on his feet, charging, out of control. He felt his rapid movements from a distance, observed himself slay the Leviathan without participating in any of his actions. Lightning coursed through him. His skin, his bones, his organs, all aflame, but it did not bother him. Even as the Leviathan’s acrid blood splashed his face, Asbel only grinned. It was so, so very sweet.

Only when he spotted Pascal on her hands and knees, gaping at him with undisguised terror, was he struck by the gravity of what he’d done. His head split. His knees gave out.

Captain Malik approached him slowly, lifted him slowly by the arm.

“We need to get off this ship,” said Malik, eyeing Asbel warily, a little fearfully.

Right. Yes. The ship was sinking, and them still on it.

Asbel looked about for Murphy, but there was no sign of him. Asbel was weak, he was tired, and his stomach twisted in wrenching knots. He did not feel its emptiness before, but he felt it now.

“Pascal,” said Asbel, voice hoarse.

Captain Malik nodded, left Asbel’s side a moment to collect the girl shivering on the slanted deck. He returned with her small behind him. She would not even look at Asbel, much less meet his gaze. No wonder, after such a brutal display. Not to mention he was slathered in the Leviathan’s reeking blood.

“There are barrels in the hold,” said Malik. “Not ideal, but they’ll float. Grab one and hold on tight.”

And so they did, and drifted as the clouds parted, as Foselos and the stars one-by-one peeked through.

* * *

 After hours adrift, a passing merchant ship picked them up. No one else, it seemed, had survived. They would have been bound for piracy and handed over for justice in Barona, but for that they’d slain the Leviathan that plauged the trade routes for months. That counted for something, and the merchant captain vowed to look the other way. He even fed and watered them, starved and sun-parched as they were.

Asbel ate ravenously, and for the first time since he’d set foot on a ship he did not feel the urge to puke it back up. Actually, he felt good. Even great. Only Richard, fixed forever in his heart and mind, made his chest ache and his throat close up. Guilt gnawed at him. How could he beating death, twice, when Richard was gone?

_“You are too attached to your transient things.”_

Asbel’s vision swam. He would have fallen over were he not already sitting.

“Sorry,” he spluttered. “Did you say something, Cap?”

Malik, sitting across from him, raised a fuzzy brow.

“No. Hearing things, Windor?”

Pascal, who sat beside Malik, bore into Asbel with her wide, searching eyes. She’d avoided looking at him direcly before, but for the past hour or so she hadn’t looked away once.

_“Amarcian.”_

The voice growled. Too familiar. Too close. Like a tender echo in his aching skull.

Asbel repeated the word carefully under his breath. It had a half-remembered ring to it, like something out of myth or legend.  
  
Pascal tilted her red-and-white head. Asbel regarded her, truly took her in for the first time. Sun-bronzed and slight, eyes large in a small, round face. They gave her a look of childish wonder and purity, those eyes, reminding Asbel of his free and careless days roaming Lhant. Pascal’s lips were small and chapped from endless biting, though when she smiled, when she really smiled, the corners of her mouth stretched ear-to-ear. It was the prettiest thing.

She was precious to Asbel in her way, in her light-hearted manner and the eagerness with which she faced all things. Asbel realized that since the moment they’d met, Pascal never left his side. Gratitude warmed him from the inside out.

 _“You woke me for_ this _? The knots in your core...Were they not reserved for your king?”_

King? Who was king?

Malik and Pascal stared at him, Malik with concern, Pascal with deep interest. It was another moment before Asbel realized he’d spoken aloud.

“I...uh...sorry…”

“That monster hit you pretty hard, I see,” remarked the Captain. “You should lie down. Get some rest. The merchant captain says we’ll reach the port at Fendel tomorrow noon.”

“That’s my home,” said Pascal, blank-faced, eyes still fixed on Asbel as though there was nothing of greater interest in the whole world. “I grew up playing there.”

“Really,” said Malik. “Excited to be going back?”

Pascal shrugged. Smiled bright and interlaced her gloved fingers behind her head.

“It’s whatever!”

So cavalier. He loved that about Pascal, though he couldn’t relate. Asbel yearned to see Lhant again.

_“The world is changing, Asbel. What you left behind is surely not what you will find when you return.”_

He set his jaw against the headache blooming behind his eyes and tried not to grind his teeth. Fine, fine, fine. He was fine. Certainly not losing his mind from grief at last.

A derisive chuckle rumbled deep inside.

_“Am I to be your madness? Very well, if I must. Our lives are tied together, Asbel. Do not forget that.”_

The name came to his lips in an awed and breathless whisper.

“Lambda.”

Reeling, he gripped tight the edge of the table. Familiar nausea tickled his throat.

“Bucket!” Pascal screamed, standing and waving frantic arms in the air. “We need a bucket!”

Asbel couldn’t wait for the bucket. He rushed above deck and retched into the glimmering water.

_“How fragile humans are.”_

Was that disappointment Asbel detected? Either way, throwing up didn’t make him feel better in the least. He would dehydrate if he wasn’t careful. He swiped his right sleeve across his mouth and frowned at the foul taste of rot and acid burning his tongue.

“Wowee,” said Pascal. And since when was she standing in front of him? “I was wondering when that would happen. You ate your weight, guy.”

“Didn’t keep it, though.”

“Wow, you make jokes!”

“That wasn’t really…”

Pascal clapped Asbel several times on the back.

“And here I thought you’d be monosyllabic forever. That Leviathan really woke you up!”

Asbel supposed that was true, in a way. _Something_ woke up. He still hadn’t decided if that was for the best.

_“For the best or not, here we are.”_

Asbel closed his eyes. Found himself floating again in that strange place with clear water crystal all around. And there was that orb, hovering large before him. Asbel nodded slowly, once.

“I hear you...Lambda.”

The orb pulsed with raw and uncontained power. That same power coursed wild through Asbel’s veins.

When he opened his eyes again, Pascal stared at him intensely. She was so close to his face he could feel her breath tickling his lips. Asbel stumbled back against the ship’s rail, and Pascal followed him, pinning her hands to either side of his leaning elbows. Short as she was, she stood on tip toes and pressed her forehead against his. Asbel was keenly aware of her body pressed so close, of the sweat trickling down his face, of the lingering scent of sea water and blood mingled together in Pascal’s hair and on her skin.

“U-um…”

“Pink.”

Asbel blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Pascal moved away, lightly flicked Asbel’s forehead above his eye.

“It’s pink. Why is that?”

Asbel didn’t have time to ask what, exactly, was pink, or to say anything at all. Pascal clapped her hands together, exclaimed, “Right!” and turned on her heels to bound away. Asbel watched her go, dumbfounded. He rubbed at the spot where her finger made contact, still feeling the sting, still feeling heat creep across his cheeks.

It wasn’t long after Pascal disappeared that Captain Malik sauntered into view. He approached Asbel, brows raised, eyes wide and bemused.

“So that’s what sent Pascal flying into the hold like a headless chicken.”

Instinctively, Asbel slapped his right hand over his eye.

“Did you burst a blood vessel? No, that wouldn’t effect your iris. Just what in the world is happening to you?”

Asbel admitted, solemnly, “I don’t know.”

“Better get you an eye-patch. We don’t need to be drawing attention to ourselves, not even in Fendel. They especially have eyes and ears everywhere.”

Asbel wasn’t going to argue. He never argued with his Captain.

As promised, by noon the next day, the merchant vessel pulled into Fendel’s harbor with much ado. Asbel, eye properly patched, did his best to help unload cargo in thanks for being spared from the reach of the new regent’s law. Anyway, Asbel knew that the merchant captain had no warmth to spare for Frederic. From what Asbel gathered in snippets of idle gossip, no one was much pleased with the man.

“A proper tyrant,” Asbel heard one sailor say to another. “Wants to put a chokehold on trade. Land route to Fendel’s already bust, and now that pompous lord wants to kill sea trade, too.”

Asbel’s heart ached for Windor. It ached for the fallen king. Most of all, it ached for Richard, whom he would never see again. He could not, would not, believe that Richard and Ferdinand conspired to kill the king. It was beyond the realm of anything Asbel knew of Richard, and he’d known Richard like he knew the soft, sweet touch of oxygen on his tongue. Asbel brushed the ring Richard had given him lightly across his lips and sighed.

_“Pining does not become you.”_

Asbel smirked.

“Jealous?”

A scoff, and then:

_“Hardly.”_

Though Asbel searched for Pascal amidst the sailors bustling at the harbor, he did not see her. It seemed she’d left without saying goodbye. A lump rose to Asbel’s throat. Already the pain of her loss twisted his insides.

“Asbel, we’ve got to go. Nights are death here. We should settle down at the inn until we decide what to do next.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Windor?”

Asbel whirled around, heart racing.

“Pascal!”

For the first time in a long time, a genuine, warm, wide smile lifted his expression into something akin to life.

It faltered a bit when he saw five other people standing behind her, weapons ready.

“Pascal…?”

“I’m sorry.”

She moved so quickly, Asbel didn’t have time to react. Her quarterstaff swung up. Pain blossomed at his temple. Asbel stumbled to his knees, took a deep, choking breath. His vision faded at the edges.

All went black.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the long breaks in between chapters.


End file.
